The impetus for this interview session originated with a desire to gather information from W.J. "Dub" Crutcher and his role in appraising real property in Ozark National Scenic Riverways (ONSR) condemnation cases of the late 1960s and early 1970s. No one exceeds, and probably only a few equal Mr. Crutcher's knowledge of this particular topic. Mr. Crutcher had also arranged for others to be present for this session.

Joel Montgomery owns the former Leo Anderson property abutting the Current River just downstream from Van Buren, which has its own history of recreational use going back to at least the 1930s. Montgomery offers the perspective of a riverbank landowner who initially stood to lose his property, but then was able to negotiate a scenic easement with the Park Service.

Mack Campbell has long lived on Mr. Montgomery's property as a caretaker.

Coleman McSpadden gave a more full account of his perspective on the ONSR during an earlier interview conducted with him and his son, Dennis McSpadden (Collection #3966, a.c.12). But Mr. McSpadden offers additional information here with little overlap of former testimony.

Leo A. Drey was born in 1917 in St. Louis. He attended Antioch College, and later worked as assistant treasurer for Wohl Shoe Company in St. Louis. In 1951 he began buying timber land in the eastern Missouri Ozarks. This early acquisition soon grew, and by the early 1960s, the land had the name of Pioneer Forest and entailed about 135,000 acres. Today that figure is around 160,000 acres, all told. Mr. Drey's extensive collection of letters and other papers is deposited with the State Historical Society of Missouri, St. Louis Research Center. Researchers should consult this collection (and the Kay Drey collection) for voluminous additional information pertaining to environmental matters and their history in Missouri and the nation.

Bruce F. Elliott was born on July 2, 1909. He began his Forest Service career in Michigan during the Depression era. In 1954 he transferred to Ava, Missouri, to manage livestock grazing on the Mark Twain National Forest during some of the final years of open range in Missouri. In 1963 he transferred to Van Buren to work on the Clark National Forest, where he stayed until his 1972 retirement.

Mr. Elliott transferred to Van Buren just before Congress implemented the Ozark National Scenic Riverways under Park Service management. During the late 1950s and early 1960s a proposal that would have expanding Forest Service management along the Current River had, for a time, posed an alternative to Park Service management. This period witnessed an increase and diversification of Forest Service recreation facilities nationwide, and Mr. Elliott relates Clark National Forest examples in his recollection of the construction of Skyline Drive and various horse trails. The Ozark National Scenic Riverways made the Current and Jacks Fork the first nationally protected rivers, and acted as something of a precedent for the 1968 Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, which included the Eleven Point River in its first round of inclusion. Mr. Elliott helped manage the Eleven Point under this new legislation.

James Grassham was born on April 2, 1928. His ancestors go back several generations in the eastern Missouri Ozarks, where Mr. Grassham himself has lived all his life. Mr. Grassham has a long history of civic, business, and political prominence in southeast Missouri, particularly in Van Buren and Carter County. At the time of the interview he continued to operate his long standing car dealership, and more recently had expanded into the hardware business. He served as the mayor of Van Buren, 1962-1978, and as presiding commissioner of Carter County from 1986 to beyond the time of the interview.

During the late 1950s and early 1960s, Mr. Grassham was among the supporters favoring Park Service management of the Current River. He testified before Congress during both sets of hearings, in 1961 and 1963. In 1964, President Johnson signed the Ozark National Scenic Riverways (ONSR) bill. This interview offers observation of events extending from the open range of the 1950s and 1960s up to more recent topics concerning the ONSR, such as the controversy over horses running loose in Shannon County, or the limiting of tourists staying in the former Big Spring State Park (now part of the ONSR). Although generally satisfied with the ONSR's presence, Mr. Grassham has experienced some dissatisfaction with the ONSR's limited economic stimulus and related Park Service public relations, details of which he describes in several passages. Like many other community leaders, Mr. Grassham has been pleased with the ONSR's latest superintendent and generally how the ONSR has functioned during the most recent years.

Robert E. Hedden was born on July 6, 1928, in Red Field, Arkansas. He studied forestry at University of Georgia, and later worked for Armstrong Cork Company before becoming an independent timber and real estate appraiser. Mr. Hedden was one of the timber appraisers that local landowners hired during the condemnation proceedings against them for the establishment of the Ozark National Scenic Riverways (Public Law 88-492, passed in 1964).

Vernon Hennesay was born on June 9, 1927. His Park Service career began in 1948, and he worked in California, Colorado, Oregon, and Nebraska before transferring to the Ozark National Scenic Riverways as its first chief ranger, in July 1965. By February 1966, Mr. Hennesay had become the ONSR's second superintendent. His tenure at the ONSR spanned early planning and land acquisition, and before his departure for the Yellowstone National Park (in 1967), he oversaw the ONSR's first tract acquisition. Scenic easements, a fairly novel concept during the 1960s, also comprised an area of great attention for Mr. Hennesay and other early ONSR employees. The ONSR was the first nationally protected river, and faced momentous challenges in its implementation. Unfortunately, a significant degree of controversy characterized its early stages, and in this context Mr. Hennesay remembered his most important accomplishment as probably being the "soothing the feelings of the people toward the Park Service and the Riverways itself."

Marlin McClintock was born on September 13, 1929, in Mountain View, Missouri. He comes from a lengthy eastern Missouri Ozark ancestry, as his forebearers were among the very first Caucasian people in the region. Mr. McClintock moved to Van Buren as an infant, and has remained there ever since. Naturally he has much knowledge concerning local land use customs now largely bygone, such as open range, periodic burning of the forest, and "grandmawing" (or, timber theft). During the 1940s, as a teenager, Mr. McClintock took tourists on guides down the Current River. During the debates of the 1950s and early 1960s over the fate of the Current and Eleven Point rivers, Mr. McClintock was a motel owner with significant involvement in the area's tourist trade. He was part of the Ozark National Monument Association and testified before Congress in 1961 and 1963 in favor of Park Service management of the rivers. He represents one of the rare surviving participants from those Congressional hearings. After the Park Service established the Ozark National Scenic Riverways, he became one of the canoe rental concessionaires. So in addition to his knowledge of the ONSR, Mr. McClintock possesses a lengthy perspective on the lower Current River's changing tourism. He also witnessed the ONSR Commission, all of the various ONSR superintendents, and the controversy of limiting horsepower on motorboats using the Current and Jacks Fork. For Mr. McClintock, one of the great losses in the establishment of the ONSR was the compromise that resulted in the exclusion of the Eleven Point River and the Ripley County portion of the Current. Mr. McClintock feels that this diminishment in size and a subsequent lack of advertising of the ONSR has contributed to a tourist trade less prosperous than it might have been, but that overall, Park Service management has succeeded in protecting the Current River.

Mr. Coleman McSpadden was born on November 14, 1925, in Van Buren, Missouri. His ancestry in the region goes back to the beginning of white settlement in the Missouri Ozarks. He was one of the early supporters of Park Service management of the Current and Jacks Fork rivers, and testified before Congress to this effect in 1961 and 1963. He has witnessed the several Ozark National Scenic Riverways superintendents who have come and gone, as well as the early land acquisition efforts. Subsequent Park Service restrictions on camping and other regulations have dissatisfied Mr. McSpadden and his son, Dennis McSpadden. The McSpaddens witnessed the recent wild horse controversy of the early and mid 1990s, and relate their perspective on it here.

This interview deals with the lower Current River area of Carter County, Missouri, around Van Buren, and the establishment of the Ozark National Scenic Riverways (ONSR). Perhaps one of the most remarkable things revealed in this interview is a portrait of Mr. and Mrs. Shockleys' love of work, and particularly their love of working the land. The Shockleys industriously farmed several hundred acres abutting the west side of the Current River, just south of Van Buren, until the Park Service condemned some 387 acres for inclusion in the ONSR during the late 1960s.

The Shockleys were among the original ONSR opponents, and while a significant amount of this interview deals with the ONSR itself, a great deal describes their vigorous work, which was essential for prospering as farmers in a region not exactly friendly to agriculture. Work described includes farming (putting up hay, raising livestock), firewood cutting, and timbering. Other topics of interest include Mrs. Shockley's quiltmaking, the old paddlewheel riverboat business, the work of Mr. Robert Shockley (Carl's father) -- boatbuilding, furniture building, and other woodworking -- the old open range (including a really great description of old hog earmarks), "grandmawing," and annual burning of the woods. Like many other natives of the Current River area in Carter County, the Shockleys recall an earlier type of tourist from the more polite American society of the 1940s, 1950s, and early 1960s -- which stands in stark contrast to a later and much more numerous type of visitor, from the 1970s onward. And again, like other older residents of the Van Buren area, they remember Big Spring State Park as a heavily visited locale in great contrast to recent years and present time, when Park Service restrictions have heavily limited visitors and campers.

There is a lot happening in this interview, which ultimately presents a complex story. Aspects include the Shockleys' original unpleasant dealings with the ONSR. The land acquisition process they describe reflects bullying tactics which local people still generally describe and discuss in the region. The Shockleys relate details of what it was actually like to be displaced from a farm -- which required movement of themselves, all their possessions, all their livestock, farm machinery -- and the disruption which relocating their lives and livelihood entailed. But this unpleasant beginning of their dealings with the ONSR was far from the end. They participated in subsequent and remarkable cooperative efforts, including the loaning of farm equipment to the actual ONSR land acquisition officer who had earlier upset them so much. They also participated (ultimately unsatisfactorily) in the ONSR's field leasing program. Mr. Robert Shockley was well known for his johnboat building, which he eventually performed as part of the ONSR's interpretative program. Understandably, the Shockleys are still bitter against local, original supporters of establishing the ONSR.

Mr. Don Yantis was born on March 23, 1912, in Paragould, Arkansas, not far downriver from where this interview took place. He first began visiting the Current River area during the 1930s. He bought his property along the Current River in 1952, and built his house four years later. Mr. Yantis has a great recollection concerning his lengthy past experiences on the Current River, which included johnboat excursions, fishing, fish snagging, and frog grabbing. Mrs. Pauline (Piney) Yantis was born and raised along the Big Sandy River in the Kentucky Appalachians. She makes some interesting contrasts between the Ozarks and Appalachians.

After 1964, when the Park Service began managing the Ozark National Scenic Riverways, the Yantises made a life estate agreement over their property. For the past seventeen years they have made their riverside cabin their spring, summer, and autumn home. Their son Stuart lives just upstream from them in another riverside house, which he gained in a trade with the Park Service for other land. Mr. and Mrs. Yantis have been very dissatisfied with the increased river traffic, and particularly with jet boats. Park Service restrictions on horsepower do not apply to the lower reaches of the Current River, from Van Buren down. The Yantises relate some interesting accounts pertaining to ONSR rangers, and an especially good story about Ranger Rick Drummond's capture of deer poachers.